Germany's opposition kept up its attack on Angela Merkel's government today, charging that it did nothing to stop its foreign intelligence service spy on European politicians and companies for the United States.
Merkel's close ally, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, however, emerged from a closed-door grilling by a parliamentary oversight panel, denying any wrongdoing while he ran her office and oversaw intelligence matters.
"As chancellery chief of staff in 2008 I knew nothing about search terms from the US side or ... Similar things for the purpose of industrial espionage in Germany," he told reporters. "No company names were mentioned."
"There is no substance to the allegations made against me," he said.
German media have accused the foreign intelligence service BND of helping the US National Security Agency (NSA) spy on targets such the Airbus Group, the French presidency and European Commission.
The key question has been to what extent the BND willingly cooperated as the NSA broadened its surveillance from potential terrorist threats to European officials and businesses -- and what the government knew.
Merkel herself pledged to face questioning by lawmakers if asked, saying in a radio interview: "I will testify and stand accountable, if necessary. I will gladly make myself available."
While popular Merkel has so far dodged the harshest criticism, de Maiziere was accused of misleading parliament over the "BND affair" when his ministry said last month it knew nothing of NSA industrial espionage.
Opposition politicians harshly disagreed with the latest comments by de Maiziere, who was last week caricatured as a liar with a Pinocchio nose in Germany's best-selling newspaper Bild.
Panel chairman Andre Hahn of the far-left Linke party called his version "unsatisfactory", saying there was evidence the BND had informed the chancellery of repeated US spy attempts that breached a bilateral security agreement.
Greens party lawmaker Hans-Christian Stroebele charged that "no attempt has been made to shut down or clear up" the US spying from Berlin, and said that "the case of Minister de Maiziere remains open".
